About this item
The highly-anticipated follow up to The Girl from Summer HillThree women of different generations gather at a house in Summer Hill, Virginia to discuss their marriages and look at how they'd do things differently if they could do it all over again. Olivia is in her sixties and recently married her first love after forty years apart. Her first marriage was long and unhappy and she is thrilled to finally be with the man she's always loved. Kathy is in her forties and is married to a handsome, successful businessman. She is a great business partner for him but he is passionately in love with a woman from his past. Kathy wants to stand on her own in business and regrets ever marrying her husband. Elise is in her twenties and is married to the man her wealthy parents chose for her. She has tried everything to get her husband to pay attention to her but she is certain he is having an affair. When she discovers the truth--that he has a pregnant mistress--her life falls apart. All three women share their regrets, their wishes and their dreams and find themselves with the opportunity to start again. All three discover what happens if their wishes really could come true.
About the Author
Jude Gilliam was born September 20, 1947 in Fairdale, Kentucky. She has a large extended family and is the elder sister of four brothers. She attended Murray State University and received a degree in Art. In 1967, Jude married and took her husband's surname of White, but four years later they divorced. For years, she worked as 5th-grade teacher. She began writing in 1976, and published her first book, (1977) under the name Jude Deveraux. Following the publication of her first novel, she resigned her teaching position. Now, she is the author of 31 bestsellers. Jude won readers' hearts with the epic Velvet series, which revolves around the lives of the Montgomery family's irresistible men. Jude's early books are set largely in 15th- and 16th-century England; in them her fierce, impassioned protagonists find themselves in the midst of blood feuds and wars. Her heroines are equally scrappy -- medieval Scarlett O'Haras who often have a low regard for the men who eventually win them over. They're fighters, certainly, but they're also beauties who are preoccupied with survival and family preservation. Jude has also stepped outside her milieu, with mixed results. Her James River trilogy ( and ) is set mostly in post-Revolution America; the popular, softer-edged moves to 19th-century Colorado and introduces another hunky-man clan, the Taggerts. Deveraux manages to evoke a strong and convincing atmosphere for each of her books, but her dialogue and characters are as familiar as a modern-day soap opera's. "Historicals seem to be all I'm capable of," Jude once said in an interview, referring to a now out-of-print attempt at contemporary fiction, 1982's . "I don't want to write family sagas or occult books, and I have no intention of again trying to ruin the contemporary market. " Still, Jude did later attempt modern-day romances, such as the lighthearted (her first murder caper) , the contemporary female friendship story , and the time-traveling . In fact, with 2002's , Deveraux seems to be getting more comfortable setting stories in the present, which is a good thing, since the fans she won with her historical books are eager to follow her into the future. Jude married Claude Montassir, with whom she had a son, Sam Alexander Montassir, in 1997. They eventually divorced. On Oct. 6th, 2005, Sam died at the age of eight in a motorcycle accident. Jude has lived in several countries and all over the United States. She currently lives in Charlotte, North Carolina and has an additional home in the medieval city of Badolato, Italy.
